Radio broadcasting began in the 1920's and was originally available via a fixed receiver that would plug into AC house current and that would typically sit on a table or other piece of furniture in a non-portable fashion. In 1954, the transistor radio was introduced providing listeners with portable receiver capability in the form of a compact device that could be carried in a pocket. Using the transistor radio, a listener could listen to radio broadcasts virtually anywhere as long as they were within range of the radio transmitter and had a battery power source.
In the 1990's, with the growth of the Internet, music and other broadcasts became available over the Internet via a personal computer. With Internet radio, audio is delivered over the Internet via streaming media. Streaming media is a continuous broadcast that works through three software elements: an encoder, a server, and a player. The encoder converts audio content into a streaming format, the server makes it available over the Internet, and the player retrieves the content. For a live broadcast, the software elements work together in real time. An audio feed runs to the sound card of the computer or other device running the encoder software at the broadcast location and the stream is uploaded to the streaming server. A player retrieves the content from the streaming server and plays the content via a sound card or other hardware designed for the purpose of playing back the content.
Because the content is delivered via the Internet, Internet radio does not have geographic limitations such as those imposed by the broadcast range of a conventional radio broadcast. For example, using Internet radio, a broadcaster in Tokyo can be heard in Philadelphia over the Internet.
As people have become increasingly more mobile, devices have been developed that are able to access the Internet via the existing cellular networks. Some PDAs and web-enabled cell phones include features that enable them to be used to access email, download MP3 files and perform, in a mobile fashion, other operations that are typically performed from a desktop PC. Some have even developed devices whose primary function is to act as a receiving device for Internet radio “broadcasts” (as opposed to a telephone that has the ability to access Internet radio).
While the above systems are able to provide users with the ability to receive Internet radio via a portable device, all of the technology known to the applicant deliberately makes use of the ability to “receive” Internet broadcasts from around the world and, indeed, touts this ability as a selling point. While this may be fine for some, the typical user of a portable radio is often interested in receiving broadcasts local to the area in which they are situated. While this expectation may be based upon the limitations of typical broadcast radio, nonetheless, many users of these portable radios will not wish to be bothered with determining whether to listen to one of thousands of stations from Europe or places located a long distance from their current location; rather, they may be interested in local news, sports, weather, etc. and thus wish to simply turn on their radio and receive local broadcasts. No such systems exist in the prior art that provide this ability.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to have a method for providing portable automatic access to digital “broadcast” content available on the Internet, specifically Internet radio that plays a discreet segment of the available content, such as only content that is “local” to the proximity of a wireless device configured to receive these broadcasts, based on the location of the device at any given time.